Jim hesitated for a moment, but Elvin turned around and beckoned him. “Come on,” he said. “We don’t have much time. You want your body back, don’t you?”
Reluctantly, Jim followed him down the steps. Instead of going out into the street, however, Elvin turned right down the narrow path to the back of the apartment block where the dumpsters were kept. The path was dark and wet from a dripping garden tap, and Elvin’s feet dragged along the concrete in the same shambling gait that had characterised the zombies in Dawn of the Dead. God, thought Jim, talk about life imitating art, if Dawn of the Dead could be classified as art.
Elvin crossed the yard and then made his way through a tangle of weeds and bushes until he reached a triangular patch of waste ground between the rear of the garages and the cinderblock wall of the property next door. It was dark and shadowy here, but Jim could see that the dry, clumpy soil had been recently disturbed.
“My body’s here?” he asked, with a feeling of dread.
“Can’t you feel it, Mr Rook? Can’t you sense your own flesh?”
“So what do I do now?”
“Do what spirits always do when they come back from walking about. Slide into your body, and rest.”
Jim said, “Did Umber Jones know that I was going to leave my body tonight?”
“Umber Jones knows a lot of things, Mr Rook.”
“But only my students knew what I was going to do. Nobody else. And they wouldn’t have tipped him off.”
“Well,” said Elvin, “you’ll have plenty of time to think about it.” He wasn’t being sarcastic. In some way, his thick, obstructed voice sounded almost sad, as if he desperately wished that he was lying in a coffin under the ground, able to rest his decaying limbs.
Jim wasn’t sure what to do. He stood on the broken lumps of dug-up dirt and tried to feel where his body might be. Several minutes went by, with Elvin patiently watching him, and the night all around them busy with the sound of traffic. Then Jim became conscious of a warmth beneath his feet; a sense of wellbeing. His body was below him, he could feel it. He could almost see it in his mind’s eye. He allowed himself to sink. He closed his eyes and tried to think of himself as nothing more substantial than warm water, soaking into the soil. As he sank lower and lower, he felt his spirit trickling between each individual grain, deeper and deeper. In only a few moments, he was embraced by complete darkness.
He reached the lid of his coffin. It was only a plain pine box, and he soaked through that, too, like wood stain. He flowed back into his body, into his brain. He drew on his hands like pulling on a pair of gloves. He filled out his lungs and his stomach and he stretched out his legs until he reached his toes. For a few seconds, the sense of relief was huge.
Only for a few seconds. The next thing he knew he was trapped in a dark, stifling box, his arms pinned beside him, unable to move. A wave of claustrophobia rolled over him, but he couldn’t even scream. He was still paralysed by the goofer dust, his eyes wide open, his mouth wide open, but his facial muscles completely locked. Once, when he was playing football, he had dislocated his jaw, but this was a thousand times worse. He was gripped by such muscular rigidity that he couldn’t even express his hysteria by panting or kicking or beating his fists. He thought he was going to die.
After a few minutes, however, he tried to persuade himself to calm down. It wasn’t easy. The coffin was so tight that his nose was touching the underside of the lid. His brain was telling his heart to beat faster but his heart refused. He felt as if the frustration of being paralysed was going to explode inside him like a bomb. But then he kept trying to tell himself, you’re buried, you’re paralysed, but you’re not dead yet. Stop panicking and start thinking, otherwise you’ll never get out of here – not until Umber Jones deigns to dig you up, anyhow.
You know for a fact that people in Haiti have been known to survive in their coffins for several days after their ‘funerals’. You can survive, too, if you try to keep your head straight. Your lungs refuse to breathe, but that’s all for the best. You need to keep your metabolism down to an absolute minimum. No mental struggling, no hysteria. You practically have to flat-line.
It took him almost twenty minutes before he was able to calm himself completely. He kept having little spasms of claustrophobia which made him shudder spastically from head to foot. In the end, however, he managed to suppress his terror and to quieten his mind like a glassy pool of water. He would survive, he was sure of it. Umber Jones needed him too much to let him die. He was being punished, that was all, for trying to steal the loa stick. If he could accept his punishment calmly, then he would survive.
He tried to think of what he could do next. He could either lie here and wait for Umber Jones to exhume him, or else he could try to escape. The trouble was, his body was paralysed and his spirit was incapable of any greater physical activity than picking up a stick. He lay in total darkness, underneath the earth, unable to cry out, unable even to weep. He now knew what it was like to be a zombie; and why so many of them were so subservient when they were finally brought out of the ground. Either they were totally traumatised, or else they were so grateful for being rescued that they were prepared to do anything that their rescuer wanted them to do. There was nothing more terrifying, nothing more lonely, than lying alive in your own grave, waiting and hoping for the sound of a shovel.
Jim could have believed that God had forsaken him.
By ten-fifteen, Special Class II were beginning to become restless. Not in their usual way: shouting and throwing paper pellets and drumming on their desks. This time they were quiet and worried, talking to each other in low murmurs and occasionally going across to the window to see if Jim’s car had appeared in the parking-lot.
Russell Gloach was eating out of a family-sized pack of nacho-flavoured tortillas. “You don’t think something went wrong?” he asked. “Tee Jay’s uncle sounds like one real mean dude.”
Muffy looked at her watch. “Where is Tee Jay anyhow? He’s just about the only person who can tell us what went down, and he’s not even here.”
“Something went wrong,” said Russell, with tortilla crumbs dropping from his mouth. “You mark my words. ‘Something went wrong.”
“Will you stop being such a pessimist?” snapped Seymour. “Mr Rook could have been held up by anything. Traffic, who knows?”
“Did you ever know him to be late? He’s never late.”
“Maybe he found the stick and now he’s trying to get rid of it.”
“M-m-maybe w-we should c-call him at home.”
“David, that’s the best idea yet,” said Sharon. “Does anybody know his number?”
“It’s in his desk,” said Ray.
“How do you know it’s in his desk?”
“Because I always look through teachers’ desks, just to see what they’ve confiscated. Believe me, if you want chewing gum, penknives or porno mags, there is no more reliable source than a teacher’s desk.”
They found Jim’s number in the small leatherbound diary he always kept in his left-hand drawer. Sue-Robin took her mobile phone out of her Moschino bag and punched it out, noisily chewing gum as she did so. She blew a large pink bubble while she waited. The phone rang and rang but Jim didn’t pick up. Eventually Sue-Robin said, “He’s not answering. Something must have happened to him.”
“So what do we do now?”
“Well, let’s check with the office, just to make sure that he didn’t come in today. Then – I don’t know – maybe a couple of us ought to go round to Tee Jay’s place. Maybe Tee Jay knows where he is.”
Muffy went to see Sylvia, Dr Ehrlichman’s secretary, but Sylvia hadn’t seen Jim either. “Don’t you worry, it’s probably that old car of his. I’ll have Dr Ehrlichman set you some work to be getting along with.”
“Oh, no, no. Tell him not to bother. We’ve all got plenty to do.”
She returned to the classroom. The rest of the students were waiting expectantly, but all she could do was to shake her head.
“That’s it, then,” said Sue-Robin, decisively. “Ray and Beattie, why don’t you go to Tee Jay’s house. Ask his mom where his uncle’s place is, and then go see if you can find him.”
“Do I have go with Ray?” asked Beattie, with distaste.
Ray blew her a smoochy Italianate kiss and said, “Sure you do. I’m the one with the fastest wheels.”
“Fast cars are a pathetic penis-substitute,” Beattie sniffed.
“Fast cars get you laid faster,” Ray retaliated.
“Exactly.”
They were still discussing what the rest of them should do when they heard a scratching, squeaking sound. They all fell silent and stared at each other. Then, as if they had been choreographed, they all turned their heads toward the chalkboard. A stick of chalk was hovering in the air in front of it, tapping at it again and again, like a deathly-white dragonfly.
“Oh my God,” breathed Rita Munoz. “It must be Tee Jay’s uncle again.”
“Oh shit I hope not,” said Seymour. “What the hell are we going to do if it is?”
The stick of chalk hesitated and then suddenly dropped to the floor, making them all jump. Then, very hesitantly, it rose up again, back up to the board. It looked as if it were being held by somebody invisible, somebody whose fingers couldn’t grip properly.
“Hey, look,” said John Ng. “It’s making some marks. It’s writing something.”
With excruciating slowness, the chalk made a single vertical line. Then it moved sideways a little, and drew what looked like an Indian tepee. Then two Indian tepees.
I A AA.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” frowned Titus. But then the chalk moved sideways again and wrote what looked like an 8.
“I don’t get this,” said Ricky. “I mean if this is like spirit communication, he’d be better off giving us one knock for certainly and two knocks for whatever.”
“How do you know it’s a he?” Beattie demanded.
“Well… it could be a woman, I admit. The message is stupid enough.”
Now, however, the chalk had moved again. This time it wrote a U, and then an R, and then another vertical stroke. Whoever the writer was, he seemed to be gaining in confidence and strength as it went on. I A AA 8URIED.
“I am buried,” Titus interpreted. “That’s what it says. I am buried.”
It went on, growing defter all the time. The class watched it, spellbound. I am buried in back of garages at my home. Bring shovels. Jim.
After the word Jim the chalk stick dropped on to the floor again, and broke. The class remained silent for a moment, then they all broke out into whoops and screams and applause. He was here – Jim Rook’s spirit was actually here.
Sherma shushed everybody for silence, and then she went up to the front of the class, looking this way and that. “Mr Rook … we know you’re here. That was wonderful. That was one of the most moving experiences of my entire life.”
“Hey, forget about the speeches,” said Ricky. “Let’s go dig him up.”
They all crowded toward the door, just as Dr Ehrlichman appeared with a large folder of work under his arm. They stopped, and shuffled, and coughed. Dr Ehrlichman stared at them in bewilderment, and said, “It’s another half-hour before recess. Where are you all going?”
“Field trip, sir,” said Russell.
“Field trip? I don’t know anything about any field trip. Besides, you can’t possibly go on a field trip without Mr Rook.”
“Oh, we’re meeting Mr Rook by the beach. We have to experience the beach and then write some poems about it. You know, the little dancing waves and all that stuff.”
“Yeah and the babes in their bikinis,” put in Mark, cupping his hands in front of his chest, and then went “unh!” when Russell punched him in the back.
Dr Ehrlichman said, “I’m sorry. I haven’t given Mr Rook authorisation for any field trip. Until I can discuss this matter with him in person, you’ll have to consider it cancelled.” He sniffed. “I’ve brought you some basic maths papers so that you can keep yourselves amused for the next half-hour.”
“Amused?” groaned Greg. Maths, to him, was about as understandable as Sanskrit. He would labour for hours over his maths papers, only to produce answer after answer that his maths teacher said were not only wrong, but creatively wrong.
“We can’t leave Mr Rook waiting on the beach,” said Ray. “He’ll be wondering what the hell happened to us.”
“All right … in that case you and John here go to the beach and advise him of the change of plan. Be as quick as you possibly can. The rest of you … please sit down, and I’ll hand out your papers.”
There were more groans and hoots and suppressed Bronx cheers, and the class shuffled unwillingly back to their desks. From the doorway, Ray made a circle between finger and thumb, and then gave Dr Ehrlichman the finger. Behind his back, of course. He was disrespectful but he wasn’t suicidal.
It took them a while to find the scrubby patch of ground behind the garages, but when they did they knew that they had come to the right place. The soil was heaped up in big dry lumps, and the shape of a grave was unmistakable.
They had unofficially borrowed two long-handled shovels from the janitor’s toolstore, but they didn’t start digging right away. They stood beside the mound of soil and looked at each other uncomfortably. Back in the classroom, it had seemed like a really cool adventure, digging Mr Rook up out of the ground. But now they were actually here, standing by his grave, they were filled with trepidation. Supposing they dug him up and he was dead? Supposing he wasn’t dead, but horribly mutilated? Supposing it was all a mistake and it wasn’t him at all? What would they say to the police then? “Like a spirit message appeared on our chalkboard at college and told us to dig up this body.”
Ray said, “Maybe we shouldn’t be doing this, man.”
John doubtfully prodded the soil with the tip of his shovel. “What if he’s down there, and he’s still alive? We can’t just leave him here.”
Ray bit his thumbnail. “I don’t see how he can be alive, do you?”
“He could be. This is voodoo … and those voodoo guys, they can keep people alive even when they’re buried.”
“I don’t know, man. Maybe we should call the cops instead. Like an anonymous tip-off.”
John thought for a while longer. Then he reached inside his shirt and took out his necklet. He held it up to the sun and it sparkled sharply, as bright as a diamond. “I think it’s going to be okay,” he said. “This place has a really positive aura. There’s nothing evil here … and nothing dead, either.”
Ray said, “I’m supposed to believe some stone?”
“You saw how dark it went, when Tee Jay’s uncle came into the classroom. I trust it, even if you don’t.”
“Okay, then, let’s get digging.”
Underneath them, tightly enclosed in his dark pine box, Jim heard the first chipping noises of their shovels and thought thank God. He was feeling exhausted, as if he had run a full Olympic marathon. It had taken all of his strength for his spirit to leave his body this morning and soak back up through the soil. He had been capable only of gliding very slowly through the streets and he had almost given up before he was even half-way to West Grove college. He had stopped underneath the freeway, feeling as if the morning breeze could simply blow him away, in transparent rags and tatters, over the ocean and into oblivion.
He had managed to summon the will-power to write his message on the chalkboard by thinking of Umber Jones, and what he had done to Elvin and to Mrs Vaizey and to him, too. His rage had driven him. But after that he had been close to collapse, and he could hardly remember how his spirit had managed to drag itself back to his apartment block and sink back into the soil.
The chipping noises went on and on. Now that he was so close to being released he began to experience a rising surge of black claustrophobia. He wanted to beat on the lid of his coffin. He wanted to scream out that he was here. What if they stopped diggin
g and went away? What if it wasn’t one of his students at all? What if he was dug up by some complete stranger, who thought he was dead?
What if it were Elvin, or Umber Jones?
The shovels knocked against the coffin-lid. Then he heard scraping noises as the soil was cleared away, and the muffled sound of voices. After a few more minutes the tip of a shovel was forced underneath the lid. With a sharp creak, the lid was pried off. His face was showered in soil and his eyes were assaulted with dazzling sunlight.
Ray and John, God bless them. They were kneeling down beside him now, peering at him wide-eyed. He had never realised before that Ray was trying to grow a moustache.
“Is he dead?” said Ray. “He sure looks dead.”
John took out his necklet again. He cautiously pressed it against Jim’s forehead and held it there for a while. Then he held it up and inspected it. “Clear,” he said. “He looks like dead but he’s still alive. Let’s get him out of here before anybody sees us.”
Lifting Jim out of his coffin was a struggle that was almost comical. His muscles were so rigid that his elbows wouldn’t bend, so they couldn’t sling his arms around their shoulders and carry him between them. Instead they had to lever him bodily out of the coffin and carry him as if he were a cigar-store Indian. Gasping with effort, they carried him round to the front of the garages where Ray had parked his Caprice. They slid him on to the back seat – and while John went to recover the shovels, Ray looked through his pockets. Billfold, college timetable, keys. He found it deeply disconcerting, the way that Jim was staring at him with those bloodshot, unblinking eyes. But he patted him on the shoulder and said, “Don’t you worry, Mr Rook. We dug you up. Now we’re going to fix you up.”
John came back and threw the shovels into the trunk. “Where now?” he wanted to know.
“I think we’d better take him back to his own apartment; that’ll be best. Then we can call the rest of the class and decide what we’re going to do next.”
John looked into the car, where Jim was lying stiffly across the back seat. “Do you think he can hear us?”
Rook & Tooth and Claw Page 19